


A Mixed Blessing

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel (TV)
Genre: Gen, Sentinel Thursday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-13
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-20 22:34:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30011964
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Mostly Jim's life prior to the beginning of the series
Relationships: Jim Ellison & Blair Sandburg
Kudos: 7
Collections: SenThurs.blessing





	A Mixed Blessing

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'blessing'

A Mixed Blessing

by Bluewolf

In his waking hours, Jim remembered little of his time with the Chopek. His dreams, however, recalled days in the jungle when he worked with the shaman Incacha and it seemed that he was doing valuable work - work more valuable than the 'guard the Pass' order that was his official reason for being there.

He had guarded the Pass - with the help of the Chopek warriors - and had also stopped some of the men who had come into the jungle to collect the coca leaves they used to make cocaine.

Yes; in his dreams he knew he had done a good job during his months in Peru. And in his dreams he wondered why he had so few actual memories of those days during his waking hours. But then he woke, and all he could remember was dreaming about Peru and his time there, but not what those dreams were about.

He was a good cop, but he had a subtle feeling, during his dreams, that he would be a better cop if he could only remember, when he was awake, what it was that he had done to help Incacha.

***

Jim didn't really like working in Vice. He knew that the work was important, that stopping men preying on youngsters who, for whatever reason, had run away from home and forcing them into a life as drugged, underage prostitutes (for example) was important - and he would happily have thrown the book at the men who patronized those unfortunate youngsters. But after several months in Vice he was beginning to feel that he was losing a lot of his humanity; looking at some of the other detectives in the unit he knew that many of them had lost their humanity - and he was beginning to suspect that one or two were - well, blackmailing some of those kids into servicing them 'so that they wouldn't be arrested'.

And so he applied for a position in Major Crime.

He got it, but took with him a lot of the attitude he had begun to adopt in Vice. Within a short time MC Captain Banks partnered him with Jack Pendergrast, and his life totally changed. Jack had his problems; he gambled and didn't always know when to stop. But he genuinely felt for the victims of the crimes they investigated.

Jim knew that he would never have Jack's people skills; his childhood upbringing had been one that didn't just insist on self-sufficiency, it had demanded it. 'Friendship' was not a word in William Ellison's vocabulary; for him, to show sympathy to anyone was a weakness. And Jim had sometimes found himself wondering why his father had ever married - not just once, but twice. His first wife, Jim's mother, had died in childbirth; his second wife, Stephen's mother, had finally walked out when her son was five. Jim had never known why. He had only known that if he had been old enough, he too would have walked out.

As a child he had realized that he could see and hear better than the children he was at school with, but he had quickly learned not to say anything about it. Then when he was about ten, he accidentally let his father know how well he could see.

To say that William was not pleased would be an understatement.

Jim was never quite sure how he did it, but somehow, in the face of his father's disapproval, he managed to shut down his ability to see and hear well, and became 'normal'.

Not that it helped much; his father still disapproved of everything he did, always favoring his younger brother until he realized that where he had been very fond of Stephen when they were young, he had begun to actively dislike his younger sibling.

After he left the army, although he had returned to Cascade, he made no attempt to contact his father or his brother. And now, in Major Crime, Jack took the place of his brother... while Simon Banks, in his position of authority, more or less took the place of his father.

And then Jack disappeared. He had been tasked with delivering a ransom, but neither he nor the man being held to ransom were ever seen again.

The whisper began to go around, that he had killed the man who had been kidnapped and run off with the money; Jim made himself very unpopular in his defense of his disappeared partner, insisting that there was no way Jack would steal the money that was meant to buy a young man's life.

Jim continued to work in Major Crime, but after one abortive attempt to partner him with someone else, Simon left him working alone. Which suited him just fine... until the day(s) he sat in solitary surveillance of an old lumber mill in Cascade Forest. And his senses began to go crazy.

He went to the hospital... where he met a young doctor who gave him a business card and told him that 'this man can help you'.

The address on the card was Blair Sandburg, Hargrove Hall, Rainier University.

Some academic could help him where the doctors couldn't? But he was feeling somewhat desperate, so next day he headed for Rainier, found the office - a storage room? - and went in.

Its occupant was the young man from the day before.

Jim reacted badly at first, found Blair's explanation interesting, but when Blair said, "You're my thesis, man," he walked out. He was half aware of Blair's voice behind him, but he had mentally shut down.

In the street his attention was caught by a red frisbee. Watching it, he was unaware of anything until someone grabbed him and pulled him down onto the ground - and he became aware of lying between the wheels of a heavy vehicle as it drove past where he lay.

Just past him, it stopped. And from beside him, Blair jumped to his feet, exclaiming, "That really sucked, man!"

"What happened?"

"I tried to tell you, but you weren't listening when you walked out. It's called the zone-out factor - if you concentrate too hard on something, you sort of lose touch with the world around you."

***

His senses helped him to identify Veronica Sarris, the daughter of one of his men who had died in Peru, as the bomber who called himself - herself - the Switchman.

Blair became Jim's partner, helping him to control his senses.

And Jim came to regard them as a mixed blessing. Useful a lot of the time - yes. But a decided disadvantage when they caused him to zone out.


End file.
